


to burn cool and collected

by toomanyhometowns



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Better living through threesomes, Bodyswap, Discussion of Past Sexual Trauma, Don't copy to another site, Every day is traumatise a blonde day, Flashbacks, Lyrium Withdrawal, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24579583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomanyhometowns/pseuds/toomanyhometowns
Summary: The bed linens rustle as Cullen settles himself on the opposite corner to where Bull has posted up. He's holding his head at a slight angle, trying to get both Bull and Dorian in his reduced field of vision.Dorian hums. "Here is the function of the spell:Upon invocationne, ye caster's spyryt shal sterte to ye form of whomsoever mofte recently achieved releafe by hys hande." He taps the page in punctuation and looks back up. "And then there's a lot of text about the vast joys we may experience together, et cetera, et cetera."--Nothing about it should have brought Cullen here, tonight, but the Inquisition works with what they've got.
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 36
Kudos: 142





	to burn cool and collected

**Author's Note:**

> Massive, massive thanks to [Tainaron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tainaron), who beta'd this fic for a near-total stranger--you are a STAR! Thanks also as always to [ps](https:archiveofourown.org/users/psidn), who tirelessly encouraged and enabled me, and who really enjoyed "oh my god they probably don't have buffets in dragon age, fuck me" because she's somehow too supportive. <3 Title is from Neko Case's Margaret vs Pauline ([video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU3xh55g5yY) and [lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nekocase/margaretvspauline.html)).
> 
> Content notes, made small because they contain spoilers: _This fic contains a character (Cullen) dealing with the aftermath of trauma experienced about 10 years prior, that he hasn't totally come to terms with. That trauma includes sexual trauma (forced orgasm) from his time at Kinloch Hold, which has given him a panic response to some sexual contact and some internalised blame and a sometimes-unhealthy relationship to his body; in the plot of this story, he also consents to a sexual situation, but it's not totally free & prior consent so heads up if that's content that's likely to not work for you!_

"Did it work?" The voice is familiar, but unexpected.

Cullen comes to awareness suddenly and furiously, kneeling on a rug, nose-to-nose with Dorian Pavus. He stifles a cry and scrambles backwards, limbs more nimble than he'd have expected after a day spent largely stooped over a desk.

"Dorian?" he hisses in disbelief. His eyes dart around the room, taking in flickering candles and rich furnishings of the mage's quarters, but there's something off about the way it looks—he's having to actively turn his head as he seeks out details, almost as though his vision is blinkered by something.

Before he can get a better grasp on his environs, Dorian draws his attention by leaning back, more controlled than Cullen's panicked movement. "Apparently not," Dorian says with a smile that doesn't fit properly on his face, shuffling to cut a diagonal crossways.

Across the room behind him, an axe is sitting in the corner by the bookshelf.

"What have you done?" Cullen demands.

"We've made a mistake, but it ought to be easy to set to rights," Dorian reassures him, but he's sitting back on his heels, bringing him closer again to that weapon.

He's moving wrong, for Dorian.

Demon.

Cullen can't give away what he knows, so he smooths his movement and makes to mirror the demon, rising from his sprawl into a crouch and reaching casually for his—

His sword isn't there. He's not in his own clothes. And—

The demon seizes the moment when Cullen looks down in surprise to lunge for him, but Dorian's body feels small against Cullen, and it's not as hard as it should rightfully be to toss it aside—an effect of the strange sight Cullen had glimpsed in his moment of distraction, no doubt. But the demon is back on him in a flash, and doing _something_ to Cullen's head that leaves him twisting fruitlessly against its grasp.

The demon is speaking again, in calm tones belied by the strength it's putting into pinning Cullen. "You're in my body, not your own, but we'll get the Vint back in here to sort it out and it'll all be right as rain."

"Save your lies," Cullen hisses.

There's something familiar about the demon's low chuckle, but it doesn't sound like Dorian despite its form. "No lies." His grip on Cullen's head doesn't abate in the slightest. "Here now, slow down and take stock."

Loathe to follow suggestions from such a source, Cullen instead takes the demon by surprise with a sudden artless thrash, and rises to his feet with a violent jab of his elbow into the side of its head. Once he's gained his footing, he rushes to the axe he'd seen earlier, seizing it in a grip that feels far too natural.

With the comfort of a weapon in his grasp, and a shocking lack of the screeching disgust he usually feels in the presence of a demon, Cullen is able to follow through on what he'd been interrupted at, earlier.

He looks down. Grey skin, bare chest, loose trousers.

"See?" Dorian's voice comes from some distance away. "Just like I said. That's my body."

Cullen slowly looks up at... who claims to be the Iron Bull. He's put the bed between them, but hasn't grabbed for Dorian's staff; his hands are empty.

"I understand you're confused."

Cullen squeezes the grip of the axe tighter.

"We were trying something, but I can see Dorian may have cocked it up. It'll be easy to fix, though, I'm sure."

It's an insane gambit for a demon to try.

"Prove you are who you claim to be." At least Cullen sounds authoritative and in control, thank the Maker, because he certainly doesn't feel that way.

"What do you wanna know?"

Something Bull knows, and something a demon wouldn't. "If you are the Iron Bull, you'll know... Where the Inquisitor was injured yesterday."

"They barked their shin on a chest in the war room." Dorian's eyes crease with a hint of a smile.

Cullen should push for more, he thinks. His instincts are satisfied by that answer, but his life has been one long journey of learning that he should not rely on his instincts. They'll save him from an arrow, but in matters of discernment such as these, they'll have him be too credulous, too gullible.

He inclines his head, but doesn't relinquish the axe. What else can he ask?

"You have a good idea who I am, and you've narrowed it down a lot for me, but I wanna confirm—Cullen, is that you in there?"

He's spared from answering by the sound of someone hustling down the corridor, followed swiftly by a fist pounding on the door.

If it's a runner sent about an attack—

Mercifully, considering the circumstances, Cullen hears his own voice call from the door, "Bull, you had _better_ be in there."

\---

Dorian is embarrassed. Well, he is a lot of things, including annoyed, confused, and frustrated, but the chief emotion is still a sense of humiliation. Having to explain to the Commander of the Inquisition that Dorian and his paramour had been engaged in some salacious spellwork for a minor bedroom adventure is not an experience he'd been hoping to have.

When he'd written the runes, he'd checked and double-checked: whosoever's lover you'd last been would exchange bodies with you. He and the Iron Bull have been focussed purely on each other for some time now, so that had seemed safe enough. He'd been looking forward to what he'd heard about in rumours—an exciting, somewhat narcissistic encounter, getting to know one's lover's body from the inside out, and one's own from the outside in.

When he'd sparked the runes to life, he'd instead been jolted to a hard desk in a cool room, bent over paperwork lit by guttering lanterns. His bones had felt wrung out, like he'd been casting all day and he was in desperate need of a potion.

That aching, as much as the paltry decor, had oriented him enough to send him haring the correct way through the halls of Skyhold towards his own rooms. His first few strides had been jarring— _how the blazes did Cullen manage to run with these cursed joints of his?_ —but he'd slowed and evened out to a purposeful stalk along the ramparts.

He nods at a guard stationed at the top of the stairs, and spares a moment to be grateful for Cullen's stony visage, and its effectiveness at driving questions away.

The corridors are quiet at this hour, so he breaks into a cautious jog as he begins to mull over what's gone wrong—displacing spirits and bodies is a tricky business, and this mistake is more discomfiting than he'd like to let on. If some opportunistic shade had messed with the spellwork and snatched up Dorian's body, he'd never live it down.

He's never been happier to see his own door, nor has he treated it so rudely, rapping hard against it with one of the Commander's solid fists.

"Bull," he calls. "You had _better_ be in there."

If it weren't inconvenient at the moment, it would be a relief how muffled the voices on the other side of the door are. In a back cupboard of his mind, Dorian notes that he can be as loud as he pleases in that room.

The seconds stretch out, and in absence of the ability to prepare a precautionary fireball, Dorian settles his hand on Cullen's sword and hopes muscle memory will carry him through.

"Bull," he calls again, and squints at the door. If he wants to break it open, it'd be best to go from the hinge side—one of them is nearly rusted off already.

Slow footsteps and more inaudible speech, then the sound of a key in the lock.

"I'll just let him in, and then he'll have us sorted, sure as anything." Dorian's voice sounds higher from out here than in his own head, he's displeased to note.

He opens the door somewhat cautiously—that had probably been the Bull speaking, and he'd been using measured tones as if to keep a creature from spooking. It was likely a message to Dorian as much as to whoever was in the room with him.

"Get your hand off the sword," Most-Likely-Cullen barks as soon as he lays eyes on Dorian. He's holding Bull's axe, and the muscles along his biceps and shoulders are cording with stress.

The room is much as Dorian had left it before setting off on this unasked-for journey. An indulgent amount of candles are lit around the chamber, a phial of oil for personal usage is sitting cheerfully on his dressing table, and the bed is neatly made. The only things that are different are the runic rug, which had been knocked askew at some point, and the shivering alertness in the air, lines drawn between Cullen, with his-or-rather-Bull's back to the bookshelf, Bull, hands speakingly spread, and Dorian, slipping into the room and closing the door behind himself.

There's a tension in the room he can practically _hear_ , like a single strummed wire.

"Of course, hand off the sword," he says. "I'm sure I wouldn't know what to do with it anyways."

"Dorian," and any doubts he'd had about his identity are put to rest; that's the Iron Bull because nobody else says those syllables quite the same, loving and warning at once. "We were just talking about how _you'd be able to fix this_."

"But first," Cullen says. "Identify yourself."

"Oh, please, who else do you think would get into this situation?" Dorian asks without thinking.

A smile quirks, there and gone. "Be that as it may," Cullen says, relaxing his grip slightly on the greataxe. "What did you add to the mages' requisition most recently?"

"Candied melon slices, of course. They're good for casting, they help concentration."

"Of course." Cullen lowers Bull's axe, muscles unbunching, and returns it to the corner it'd been propped in.

With his disarmament, they all settle. Bull sits on the bed, leaning against the headboard and stretching out, ruining the flat lay of the sheets, and Dorian drags his wooden chair over from its position against the wall and sits in it.

That thread of music is more substantial now.

"Can either of you hear that?" he asks, casting around to try to visually locate the source. "Not sure if it has to do with whatever went wrong, but there's something, like a finger on a wineglass rim... It only started when I came in here."

Cullen smiles again, this time totally empty of humour. "Pay it no mind," he says.

"Well, I can't hear a thing," Bull says with forced mildness. Maker, but it's uncanny to hear Bull's accent coming from Dorian's own voice. "And if he thinks it might have something to do with all this, Commander, it might be worth shedding some light on."

Even equipped with his imposing figure, Cullen can't quite pull off Bull's quelling stare. "It doesn't matter what it is," he says. "I believed it to have been in my mind, not that body, but I suppose I was wrong. As long as Master Pavus can turn his thoughts to solving our predicament, and focus on that to the exclusion of the... song, it won't need to matter."

"Ah," Bull says, and Dorian's only a moment behind him in realising.

"The lyrium," he says. "Fascinating. I'd always thought that all the talk about its song was poetical overstatement, but it really does… tug." Bull starts to say something, which Dorian waves off. "Yes, yes, I know dwarves of course can hear it, but for humans… Is it all Templars?"

"It's not relevant," Cullen says, which means he doesn't know. He's staring still, but there's envy in it now.

He may not have known mages couldn't hear it.

After all, Dorian hadn't known until moments ago that Templars _could_ (and why would that… a question for later.). The substance has very different effects depending on whether the user has their own reserves of mana to draw on, he'd learned that much early on in his schooling, but from what he can tell, the Southern Chantry has smothered most information about lyrium, while apparently pouring it down the gullets of their young recruits. He wouldn't put it past them to have omitted the exact consequences of lyrium consumption by non-mages from their training curricula.

Dorian can locate the source now, eyes drawn to the belt pouch where he keeps his potions. The song is crisper and clearer now than before, and he has to swallow a mouthful of saliva at the thought of its sweetness.

But he's familiar with resistance.

"Well, just a temptation, then," Dorian says lightly. If his borrowed fingers are itching for it, that's nobody's business but his own. "I'll put it out of my mind."

That said, when this incident is behind them, he may have to have a chat with the Commander about practices concerning the stuff going forward.

—

The Iron Bull adds "lyrium storage" to the list of what they're going to have to deal with after this whole evening is over. Dorian is well-practiced in resisting temptation (and, when the time is right, in giving in to it) but it's clear that even with his will, he's needing to actively reclaim his attention from this apparent song.

It's spooky.

"Let's help you get your mind off that," the Bull says. He arches ever-so-slightly, and Cullen, gratifyingly, seems drawn in by the shift of muscle in his/Dorian's chest, under his open shirt. As many reservations as Bull had had about tonight's activities, he has to admit that it's fun being _pretty_ like this. "Dorian, you were about to tell us how exactly we're going to get ourselves sorted out."

"Yes," Dorian says. "I had an idea regarding that, actually, but I want to check the original text. Commander, could you be a dear and pass me the charming volume by your elbow?"

Cullen obligingly picks it up, and Bull is duly entertained by the incredulous reaction the title nets. " _Lewed shinelokkes, glamours, and magyks_? Really, you two."

"I had to part with a significant amount of coin and several magical trinkets in order to wrest it from the hands of a bookseller in Val Royeaux, but so far we've found that it was worth it." And isn't it odd to see that shit-eating grin on the good Commander's face; Bull's going to have to make more of an effort in that direction in future.

Dorian half-stands to accept the tome, then places it carefully in his lap and pages through to get to the section he'd consulted in preparing tonight's fiasco. The flickering candlelight is kind to Cullen's worn, tired skin—the Iron Bull doesn't make a habit of looking where his looking won't be welcomed, but now, he can appreciate the strong set of the man's jaw, the muscle under his bent shoulders. And though he'd grown used to the monocular life, the picture before him is somehow different now, spread out in front of him like a victory feast.

He'd wondered about Cullen, when he'd first joined up with the Inquisitor and their lot. Any man wound that tightly would have a hell of a bounce when eventually the spring was released.

The bed linens rustle as Cullen settles himself on the opposite corner to where Bull has posted up. He's holding his head at a slight angle, trying to get both Bull and Dorian in his reduced field of vision.

Dorian hums. "Here is the function of the spell: _Upon invocationne, ye caster's spyryt shal sterte to ye form of whomsoever mofte recently achieved releafe by hys hande._ " He taps the page in punctuation and looks back up. "And then there's a lot of text about the vast joys we may experience together, et cetera, et cetera. It does leave us still searching now for an explanation."

"Any idea where to start, kadan?" Bull asks. In the part of his mind that never stopped observing, he notices Cullen react to that last word with a small inhalation. How many Qunari had the man met in Kirkwall?

"As you both know, while I'm happy to say that I have indeed had the honour of entangling myself with this fine form," Dorian says, gesturing at Cullen's core with an absent hand. "That was... nearly a year ago, must be, the Commander's sure to have spilled between then and now."

The other corner of the bed is conspicuously silent as Dorian goes on, something about how the runes for the timespan might have been the source of the error.

"Cullen," the Bull says.

It ends up being all he needs to say.

"No need to consider alternative explanations, Dorian," Cullen says reluctantly. "You've already hit upon the ah, probable cause for our current predicament."

There's a palpable pause.

"You mean…" Dorian, who both jerks off and demands satisfaction of his partners with a voraciousness that the Iron Bull has been frankly impressed by, is struck silent.

"It's not all bad," Bull says. "At least you can be assured that your spellwork is still up to snuff."

"You haven't... at _all_? Even self-pleasure should count, for the purview of this ritual," Dorian clarifies with a tone verging on worry.

"I've been otherwise occupied," Cullen says. He pauses, and shoots a glance at the Bull, but must not be able to read anything discouraging off of him, since he adds in a quieter tone, "And I don't know how much you remember of that encounter, but it was not precisely efficient. I can't spare hours of my day for the sake of a minor relief."

Dorian is clearly beyond words.

"Did you have fun, when you two fucked?" the Bull asks blandly. From his understanding of the spell, if Cullen isn't willing or able to participate tonight, things are going to get difficult. If all it takes him is time, however, that's much, much more workable.

The Iron Bull is plenty knowledgeable, but there's not much to be known about the consequences of discontinuing lyrium. Headaches, judging by the Commander's occasional avoidance of bright lights; insomnia, or something like it, from the evidence bruising under his eyes; tremors, though the Bull's only been able to catch him at that a handful of times. Cullen had been careful at concealing his weaknesses, particularly around a confessed spy. It wouldn't be unbelievable if he'd lost his ability to get anything out of sex.

"I did, at that. It was enjoyable," Cullen admits, a smile curling his mouth and the edges of his words.

"Apparently so much so that I ruined you for all other company." Dorian makes a good effort to recover his superior tone.

Cullen affects an air of surprise and innocence, drawling, "Are you certain this is your bed? I only ask because that pillow is terribly small considering how big your head is."

The Bull laughs. "He's got you there."

"If I have a big head, it's only because I rightfully deserve it," Dorian sniffs, but he still looks somewhat thrown. The song, the information, or maybe even guilt about not considering the spell's risks for relative bystanders, something is under his skin.

"And has that big head come up with a solution?"

He turns his gaze back to the book in his lap, but his eyes aren't focussed. "It was cast as intended, so I imagine it should dispel as designed, as well," Dorian says.

"Meaning..." Cullen prompts.

"Meaning our spirits will return to their usual bodies once we've all achieved release." On this matter, at least, Dorian doesn't seem inclined to speak lightly. He's careful to look Cullen in the eye, though Bull catches a short flicker of his gaze on the way there.

The song again, then.

"Ah," Cullen says. "And we all three must..."

"Yes." Dorian glances at the Bull and adds, "There's a chance that we can adjust the spell to disperse by other means, but separated as I am from my mana, I believe the Bull would have to execute that solution, which seems—"

"Not a great idea," the Bull agrees. He's far more comfortable with magic than he used to be, but thinking too hard about the tingling channels of power he can feel running through Dorian's veins makes him queasy.

"No," Cullen says, nodding. "But that would work? We wouldn't end up just—" He makes a swirling gesture. "—misaligned again?"

"Your spirit and your body have an intrinsic connection," Dorian says. "They naturally seek each other out, and will do so as soon as we've ah, arrived."

The Bull grins. "'Arrived,' how pretty."

Dorian's complexion doesn't show a blush, but Cullen's sure does. "Do you have a term you'd prefer?" he asks archly.

"You know I do, but I'll spare the Commander's ears for now."

"I don't know how to thank you," Cullen says dryly.

"You could start by coming over here," the Bull suggests easily. "If you sign off on this plan of attack."

"The alternative being the non-mage attempts experimental magic to reverse the spell," Cullen states.

The Bull pulls an intentional, patient breath in, keeps Cullen in his steady gaze. "Yeah, that's about the shape of it."

"We could also appeal to Vivienne's mercy," Dorian adds.

Cullen glances at Dorian, then away again, discomfited by the sight of his own face or by the suggestion of bringing the Enchanter into this situation. Tactically, though, there's only one choice worth considering. "I don't think that will be necessary."

A spike of anticipation hits the Bull's gut, and he shares a heated glance with Dorian.

"I had... fun last time, after all." And Cullen moves to kneel on the bed now, rustling bedclothes as he shuffles toward the head of the bed, and the Iron Bull.

"Fuck yeah, get over here," Bull says. He's not vain, per se, but he's also not shy about eyeing up his body and revelling in the thrill of being out-weighed, out-bulked.

The kiss, when it comes, is surprisingly tender. The Bull lets Cullen control the pace, noses bumping as Cullen closes his eye, presses gently but irresistibly into Bull's mouth, passes of his tongue swiping shallow at first, becoming deeper and more demanding, slowly forcing Bull to crane his neck back. The feeling of giving ground sends a shiver down his back.

Not exactly what he'd been expecting, but not bad in the slightest.

There's a distant thud of boots being discarded, then the mattress sinks under a new weight, and they pull apart.

"That looked sweet," murmurs Dorian in tones Bull wouldn't have expected to hear from Cullen's voice. "Let me."

They're happy to oblige him.

\---

Shamefully, Cullen is enjoying himself. His initial discomfort at seeing the body he'd inhabited his whole life controlled by another had faded quickly, the distance even feeling somehow… right. That body doesn't do what Cullen wishes it to anyways, at least like this he has no expectations for it.

From that point, it's impossible not to get carried away by the way the Iron Bull's body responds to Dorian's, to Cullen's. Everything feels so _immediate_ and simple: the heat of Dorian's body underneath him, the intoxicating wetness of Bull's kiss, the crashing into arousal that he only dimly remembers from his younger days. No wonder the Bull has a reputation for hedonism—if this were how Cullen felt every time he took someone to bed, he'd be hard-pressed not to spend his days there. This body seems made for it, too; with his weight on the good knee, it's easy to support himself, easy to arrange the other men to his satisfaction, every one of the Bull's indulgent muscles moving in intoxicating concert.

He grunts when someone—the Bull, it must be—yanks on a horn and sends a spike of stimulation rocking through his bones. "Maker, yes," and Cullen's biting a lip and reaching, greedy, hands feeling huge as he fumbles past the placket of one of the smaller men's trousers.

The brush of hair, the heat of a cock, it all plays on his senses in vivid detail. _Maker_ , it's so easy, and it feels so good that he can't gather himself to do more than breathe, open-mouthed, into Dorian's (no, the Bull's) chest as he tugs at his handful. It'll be dry, but judging by the writhing and the muttering, Dorian's able to put up with that. His moans, rising in tone, don't even sound like he's speaking Trade, that could be—

"Commander," and there's a flick to his eyepatch, a visceral shock that startles him to awareness. "You need to stop."

The words fall on him like cold water, and he withdraws as fast as he can.

Cullen has the singular and disconcerting experience of seeing that particular body ashen and curled up before him. He's never seen it like this.

Now that Dorian's movements are unimpeded, he clutches at heart and stomach, his breathing coming too-fast and eyes open too-wide. Cullen doesn't think of himself as a small man, but looking at the mess on the bed, he's forced to conclude that he's not so large as he imagines. Or rather, that his body has a capacity for smallness.

It's repellant.

The distress, that it's _Dorian_ lying there, is the next to impose on his thoughts. The poor man's clearly suffering, and Cullen's long past their original tense relationship. Sympathy tugs at his chest.

The Bull is already seeing to him, lying interposed between Cullen's current hulking body and his habitual unfortunate one, murmuring something below the range of hearing.

"This is a terrible idea," Dorian manages in reply. "This is a terrible idea, go away."

And the Bull grabs his hand and squeezes hard enough that it must be uncomfortable. "Slower breaths, kadan, follow me."

"Yes, yes," Dorian says dismissively, but he does suck in a long, juddering breath.

Cullen wants to be farther away, he thinks, so he slips off the bed and kneels beside it, watchful of Dorian's slowing breaths. He has space, now, and an unpleasant pressure on the bad knee to counteract the previously-pleasant pressure in his groin.

He suspects he knows what happened. He's almost surprised by the wave of anger his suspicion rouses in him; in hindsight, this was only what he should have expected. If he hadn't been so distracted by his self-indulgence, he would've anticipated this.

The sound of Dorian's breathing has quietened now.

"Thank you for stopping," the man says, and does Cullen's voice ever sound that flimsy? It's like a veil trying to hide a pile of rubble. "I realise you didn't exactly know what I was saying."

"Bull acted fast," Cullen says pointlessly.

The Bull moves to sit, cross-legged with a nearly-humorous bulge still between his—Dorian's—legs, at the foot of the bed. "You didn't have the context you needed to act the way you would've wanted."

"Perhaps not." Cullen wonders what the context is that he's missing. Now that his mind is clearer, he realises that had been Qunlat Dorian had been gasping. Some sort of code, just between the two of them, then. Cullen shifts on the flagstones.

Dorian scrubs trembling hands through disheveled hair and levers himself to sit upright as well.

"Cullen," he starts, and the veil is gone now; it's just rubble. "What the fuck was that? Your body felt like it had been catapulted into a battlefield."

It's easier to answer the question once asked directly. "I apologise," Cullen starts. "What happened just now was, ah, another aspect of my experience that I'd assumed was in my spirit, rather than the flesh. I wasn't thinking you'd have to bear it."

His companions look uncomprehending.

He clarifies, "Intimacy can be overwhelming at times."

Dorian frowns and brushes a droplet of sweat away. "I've been overwhelmed in my day." And Cullen would expect a story, something extravagant and embarrassing with excessive prurient details, but instead, he continues plainly. "It wasn't like that."

The back of the hand Dorian had brought to the brow is glossed with a sheen of sweat. Cullen tries not to stare at it, able to observe that body from this unenviable angle. Does Cullen truly look like that? Weak, sick, wretched?

Cullen brushes past his distaste. "Uncomfortable, then. Distressing."

"Always?" The Bull is studying him sidelong, which begins to stoke a recalcitrant flame in Cullen's stomach.

He's opening his mouth to say it doesn't particularly matter when Dorian asks, with careful articulation, "Did it take you like this, the night we spent together?"

It takes a long moment for Cullen to decide on a response. He and Dorian are breathing at almost the same rate, now, controlled, rationed.

He's trusted them with enough, over their time as comrades-in-arms, chess partners, even friends.

"Not always," Cullen answers. "And it wasn't like this, that night."

If they're to set themselves to rights, Dorian's going to have to coax that body into finding release; it'll be more straightforward if he knows the whole picture. Perhaps if Cullen holds that pragmatism in the front of his mind, he may be able to use it to blunt the feeling of sharing the rest of this.

"You already know somewhat of Kinloch Hold," Cullen says, and waits. The rumours around the Circle Tower had been widespread—they'll both have heard something about it, and the Inquisitor may have let more slip, or the Iron Bull may have ferretted more out in his time as Ben-Hassrath. Would he have kept any knowledge from his lover?

"It fell," Dorian says. He's watching Cullen too closely. "During the Fifth Blight. Abominations, demons, blood magic…"

"You were the last Templar left," the Bull says. Dorian looks surprised at that, but he doesn't understand yet.

They're both far enough away that Cullen couldn't touch them right now if he wanted. Good. Cullen doesn't want to.

"Yes," he says, and takes another breath. Bull's lungs seem to be able to fit more air than his own—they're probably measurably bigger, Cullen supposes. He's not accustomed to explaining this, but it's probably easier using the Bull's breath than it would be using that of the trembling husk on the bed. "They kept me alive partly for purposes of experimentation—questions of, oh, is magic powered by blood from one artery stronger than that powered by blood from another."

Dorian doesn't exert himself to control his expression at that, but he doesn't interrupt, either.

"I'm inferring based on their actions—they weren't keen to share their theories with their research subject." He should sound wry, but he doesn't have that kind of control. The next part is harder. "One of the blood mages also had an interest in whether blood magic could take spark from some other bodily issue," Cullen pronounces, looking at the wall opposite, and past it. The words are slow and somewhat robbed of meaning. "Not blood."

It can't have happened more than a half dozen times, he thinks. Negligible among the surfeit of horrors in that stone prison. Still, that feeling of being instrumentalized, nothing but a source to be harvested, as if he had neither agency nor value beyond—

He'd been young at the time. It had left something of a mark.

"They forced you," Dorian says.

"Never—not to receive," Cullen says. "Only to... produce." He tastes tangy metal, and doesn't think about why. "It is the remnant of that investigation that you experienced. Certain acts remind me of it, among them, the touch of hands to the member." He's nearly free of the worst part of this evening, he must be. "Again, I beg your pardon—had I known you would suffer that reaction, I would have warned you. It's more manageable when you're braced."

"Manageable," the Bull repeats.

The word seems straightforward to Cullen. "Yes," he says, in absence of anything else to say.

"And those mages, they were killed, right?" Dorian checks.

"Yes," says Cullen again. He finds himself staring at the point where the two hands are clasped on the bed in front of him, the contrast in skin tones minimized by the candlelight.

He isn't really thinking anything. Dimly, he's aware that Dorian and the Bull are exchanging looks, communicating something secret.

They will have to be their usual selves in the morning. The end of the world is coming, and they each have a place to be and a role to fill, and they don't have time for this, whatever it is.

"What do you want right now, Cullen?" The silence folds up around Bull's question.

He looks up at him, mind empty of words for a moment. "Want?" He takes another one of those big breaths. "I want this to be taken care of tonight." The air knocks a few other thoughts loose. "Ah, and it goes without saying that I want word of what I've shared with you to spread no further than this room."

"Of course," says Bull.

"We wouldn't dream of it," says Dorian.

"Good," says Cullen. "That helps."

He can look at Dorian again now, at the body crushing a pile of silken pillows. He needs to get back into that body, get Dorian back into his own, take responsibility for the form he's lived in his whole life.

The tips of its fingers are bleach-white even in the warm candlelight. Cullen can't convince himself he truly wishes to return.

"How are you, Dorian?" he asks. "Do you want to continue?"

The fingers flex and clench. "I still think it's the best solution, but... Have you found any strategies to mitigate this reaction? I ask not to pry, but rather to ascertain whether we should consider going to Vivienne after all."

The inquiry is a logical one, but it throws Cullen for reasons he can't articulate to himself. "You'll know it's coming, so that should help. You can brace, or try to transmute the, the sensation into excitement."

Dorian hums, his voice gaining strength now. "If that's all I have to cling to, then our 'easier solution' is going to be closer to impossible." A thin hair of humour threads into his words. "I may be practiced in magic, Commander, but I would be hard-pressed to transmute that kind of fear into anything."

The word _fear_ lingers in the air past its welcome. Cullen doesn't usually think of his reaction as being fear—what kind of man is afraid to be touched like that?—but then, he tries not to think of it at all.

What Dorian doesn't ask is whether Cullen had performed that transmutation at all, their shared night those many months ago. It spares Cullen from having to decide whether he needs to lie, for which he's grateful.

"So. Nobody should try to jerk him off," Bull establishes bluntly. "What do you like? What gets you hot?"

After a career surrounded by men and women separated from their sweethearts, Cullen's crafted a set of responses he usually gives to such questions, most designed to reroute and redirect conversation. He never would have imagined there would be a day he would've longed for experience talking about this.

Still, there'd been a time when he'd taken people to bed with some regularity. Fellow budding Templars, the occasional mage, before he'd realised his power over them. In Kirkwall, too, he'd tried to regain a sense of normalcy through intimacy—but those encounters had left him feeling anything but normal. They wouldn't be helpful now. And then there was that time with Dorian, caught up in the nearness of their death and the wish to grasp for life; Dorian, with whom Cullen had finally understood that he shouldn't try, not anymore. That wouldn't be helpful either.

He casts a line into his memory for something that other man would have liked, the Cullen who had preceded this one.

"I don't... like to rush," he says. That hadn't been what Bull had asked. "Purposelessness, then, and... kissing. Holding the, the hand."

"Using someone's mouth," Dorian remembers with a grin. "You liked that."

"Yes," he says. In lieu of blushing, the Iron Bull's body seems to have hair on his neck rise when he's feeling caught out. It's a much more subtle reaction.

Cullen's jealous of that, he acknowledges to himself, and sets it aside.

"What about opening up?" Bull asks. "Do you like getting fucked?"

"I honestly don't know," he says. "I never took the opportunity." It's not that he's never thought about it before, it's just that… Well, none of his earliest companions had had the luxury of time or privacy, and in more recent years, after the first few times he'd tried to chase relief on his own and had ended up in a cold sweat, he'd lost any appetite for more elaborate explorations.

Bull hums. "Well, Dorian absolutely does, so I bet he'll be willing to help you find out."

That conjures images into his mind, bidden by Bull's easy confidence. Dorian, straddling his thick legs, Dorian, bent over the chair, Dorian's _ass_ …

Cullen blinks. "Right," he says weakly.

There's a groan from the bed as Dorian stretches extravagantly. "Don't make promises for me," he tells Bull. "It's rude."

"Was I wrong?" Bull asks.

"We'll have to see," Dorian says. He seems to have perked up quite a bit, mostly recovered from Cullen's body's betrayal. "For the time being, however, I think the Commander ought to return. He's a trifle far for my tastes."

"If you're sure," Cullen says, and unfolds himself from the floor, realising as he does that he'd been kneeling directly on a rough join in the flagstone, and had been too distracted to feel the discomfort.

Bull won't mind, he assumes.

"Obviously I'm sure, I wouldn't have offered if I weren't," Dorian says. He's encouraging Bull to shuffle towards himself to make room on the large bed for Cullen. He doesn't seem overly traumatized, but perhaps he's just putting on a front.

Cullen will be careful, he pledges. He'll get as involved as he must in order to free Dorian from that disobedient and broken body, but he won't overstep, no matter the eagerness he can feel in the Bull's blood.

"As you say," Cullen says, and lowers himself to the bed, cautious, cautious.

\--

Putting on a front in the bedroom isn't alien to Dorian, but he bitterly wishes those days were behind him. Bull can probably feel the racing of his (Cullen's) heart where they're pressed up back-to-front, but he's a sound tactician and isn't going to call attention to it.

There's a bruised feeling running through his bones, the blighted music hasn't let up (though it's no longer as deafening as it had been when his whole body had frozen up, crying out that the lyrium would save him, it would let him protect himself, if only he would—), and his damned fingers are getting cold, but Dorian can live with all of that.

He can live with Cullen's diplomacy concerning the night they'd spent in each other's company, too, but he's significantly less sure he can leave that be. He may have had occasional lapses in taste, but Dorian doesn't generally like to be something that his partners have had to survive.

Independently of his own wishes, Dorian's running through a clinical play-by-play of that night many months before, wondering how he could have missed a reaction as intense as what he'd felt earlier. Of course, Cullen had hidden it ( _braced, transmuted_ ), but Dorian should have known. Maybe when he'd dropped to his knees abruptly, when he'd made that choked sound a propos of nothing, when he'd dug his nails into Dorian's back…

They have to sort themselves out first, but then, they are going to have a _discussion_. Besides anything else, Dorian feels an almost-responsibility to the man to encourage him to reacquaint himself with the fine art of fucking.

Bull's coaxing Cullen with kisses and low appreciative murmurs, and he seems to be having an effect. Cullen's no longer half-falling off the bed, and he's forgetting himself enough to begin pawing ineffectually at clothing. He's not getting much help from Bull on that angle, since Bull uncooperatively hasn't let go of Dorian's hand from when he'd grabbed it earlier. Dorian's grateful for the steadying pressure.

He watches Bull with Cullen and teases the tip of his tongue along the roof of his mouth. It tickles, and distracts him from the… not fear. The worry.

Maker, but his body and Bull's make a pretty picture together. He bites his lip as Bull bites at Cullen's.

He reclaims his hand and starts helping Cullen deal with clothes. Cullen's inoffensive shirt and breeches stay on for now, but Dorian's soft sleeping clothes need to go (bad enough they'd been witnessed already—he has much more impressive ensembles in his trunk), so he focuses on peeling the trousers down, copping a feel on the way. That'd been the whole point of this exercise, and Dorian won't be dissuaded from the opportunity to grope his own ass.

The shirt requires disrupting the kiss, which he does with an unapologetic nibble to his own ear, startling a shocked breath from Bull.

"Kadan," he groans. "That always feel that good?"

"Oh, even better, when it comes from you," Dorian assures him.

The Commander proves he's no fool, leaning in and copying Dorian's actions. Bull hisses in pleasure. "I'd always wondered what you were on about, but—ah," and Cullen's switched to biting a trail downwards, following the line of Bull's neck.

"Very nice, Cullen," Dorian says, and chances a grab at his horns. The sensation plays between familiar and unfamiliar; the same smooth, solid texture under new, roughened and callused hands.

Bull is hot and naked against Dorian's front, and Cullen's mouth is making obscene noises against Bull's skin, and his horn is firmly in Dorian's grip, which makes even the slightest movement immediately _known_ , and in general, it's… working. He feels like he has some control over what's happening, and maybe that has something to do with the slight ember of heat growing in his gut.

He's not used to these crystalline clear thoughts at this point in proceedings, but lust really does come slowly to Cullen's body.

No time like the present, he supposes. And, well, Cullen had said he'd like kissing.

"Bull," Dorian says softly, letting go of Cullen's horn to prop himself up on one elbow, and Bull understands.

Bull half-turns so that he's lying fully on his back, head and shoulders occupying the space Dorian had cleared. "Not often I get to be in the middle," he says, and when Dorian smiles, the corners of Bull's eyes crease in turn. He cranes his neck to meet Dorian's kiss.

The mustache takes him aback at first, its scratch against the sensitive skin of his face, but the feeling soon feeds into the warmth in his core. His lips feel almost ticklish, they're so responsive to the slightest touch; Bull drags his teeth over Dorian's bottom lip and he can't muffle a moan at the lightning-tingle, nor hide the eager opening of his mouth.

Cullen hadn't exaggerated—his body loves this. The Bull kisses the same way even in Dorian's skin, the searing plunge of his tongue a familiar touchstone in the sea of confused impulses. Dorian simultaneously wants to melt and overpower, to fight back and give in. His skin, which so far had been devoted mostly to sending Dorian unpredictable and uncomfortable prickles, is now singing hungrily for _more_.

"Maker," he hears Cullen whisper. "You two look..."

His head is in the way of where Dorian would normally want to pass a leg over to straddle Bull's waist, but he forgives him instantly when he glances down and sees that he's resting his bearded chin right in the crease of a coppery leg, mouth agape, single eye widened at Dorian and Bull like he's gazing at Andraste herself.

"Did we distract you, little lion?" Dorian purrs.

"Yes," says Cullen, disarmingly blunt, before he blinks some focus back into his gaze and sets to mouthing at the skin in front of him. Under their observation, he sucks a wide, dull mark into Bull's hip, then scoops his forearms under Bull's legs to get better access to give his inner thighs the same treatment.

Dorian tries not to be charmed by his business-like attitude, and utterly fails.

There's a growl from Bull that sounds altogether too quiet, and Dorian takes their mutual moment of enjoyment to begin shedding some of the Commander's clothes. The shirt goes first, a couple buttons released before the whole garment gets tugged over his head, no doubt making a mess of Cullen's glorious golden hair. He runs an exploratory hand towards his waistband, but his cold fingertips seem to leave freezing trails in their wake that go much deeper than his skin, so he rapidly changes course to thumb over his nipple instead.

It's not _bad_ , the brief spike of sensation, but it's not compelling either, and that glow of heat he'd been enjoying is threatening to dim.

"Pinch," says Cullen. Dorian supposes the man would know, so he does.

It startles a sound, some bastard child of a whine and a grunt, directly out of Dorian's chest. He curses in Tevene and his hips lift from the bed. "Maker, I could feel that in my _balls_."

He pinches the same nipple again, and twists this time. He thinks he makes another sound, but he couldn't say what exactly.

It's not purely good, the sensation, but it's so powerful that it might as well be.

"Yeah?" Bull asks, voice deepened by arousal, and slides his hand along to cover Dorian's other nipple.

"Nnh," Dorian manages while Bull sets to abusing his chest.

"You get the nicest flush when you're like this," and he can't even tell which of them Bull is addressing, but either would technically be true at the moment. "Rosy pink."

There's a hand at his waist again, and his heart kicks up and his eyes snap open to see Cullen undoing the fastening of his trousers in a business-like way.

"I'll just be a moment," he says when he feels Dorian's eyes on him. "We should just get these out of the way."

"Of course," Dorian says, and focuses on the sharp, beloved shape of the face Cullen is wearing rather than the nervous thrum of his heart.

Cullen makes brusque work of his pants and trews, bothering only to undo as much as is necessary to grant access to Dorian's still largely-unresponsive cock. When he looks away again, expression unreadable, Dorian reflexively grabs at his shoulder.

Why he'd done it, he's not quite sure, but Bull as always seems to be a step ahead. He noses at Dorian's cheek and says in a carrying tone, "While you're down there, Commander, why don't you show him what you'd been showing me?"

Despite his extensive experience decoding the moods of the Iron Bull from his features, Dorian can't seem to transfer those skills now that Cullen is behind his eyes.

"Of course," he says, and licks a broad, flat line along Dorian's cock before taking it into his mouth.

The heat of his mouth streaks up to feed the renewed hunger low in Dorian's belly, and he takes a moment to enjoy the feeling of this mouth, huge around him as always. Dorian's cock isn't hard yet, but even if it were, he thinks it'd fit in Bull's mouth—the thought closes his eyes and drops his own jaw in anticipation. A big lad like the Commander looking _small_ like that...

"How is he?" Bull murmurs. "He doing me justice?"

The truth is complicated—the pressure Cullen's hands are putting on his thighs is exacerbating their insistent ache, but the sloppy drool catching in his body hair is filthy in the best way—and Dorian is too out of it to articulate anything. "'S good," he pants eventually, and it's mostly right.

It's even more right when Bull bites at his chest, teeth wide around his pectoral and tongue scrubbing unrelentingly back and forth at the nub in the centre.

Cullen slurps off Dorian's slowly, surely stiffening cock and noses at his pelvis before tugging him further down the bed with hands slipped under the small of his back, and taking him back into his mouth and redoubling his efforts. Dorian's never gotten hard this slowly before, never felt the fractional creep of lust through his body like this. With Cullen's hands underneath him, he's surrounded by the man; there isn't a way he can move that Cullen couldn't at least feel, if not prevent.

It's so _much_ even through the slight fog around all of this body's sensations, that it takes Dorian time to realise he's making halting vocalizations; and on the heels of that, to realise the protesting wave of cold panic is lapping at his spine.

"Wait, wait—" He digs his fingers into Cullen's shoulder, but he doesn't hear.

"Commander," Bull snaps for the second time that night.

Perhaps it's just paranoia on Dorian's part, but the man seems almost reluctant to part with his cock-sucking. There's a mulish cast to his jaw that fades as he wipes it off, and his voice is rough as he asks, "Are you well?"

"Yes, it didn't strike me as it did before," Dorian says. He releases his grip on Cullen's shoulder, to be caught up immediately in Bull's hand as he puts pressure right in the middle of his palm, grounding rather than crushing. "But it felt like it was about to."

As it is, sweat is standing out in the small of his back, making Cullen's hands slip as they withdraw, but his heart is relatively steady, and the infernal song isn't any louder than it has been.

Progress, of a sort.

Bull is pressed to his side, and Cullen is still sprawled over his legs, hands now resting solidly on his knees. They're both watching him.

They should look edible; Dorian's not sure he has the appetite.

"Your body certainly doesn't make things easy, Cullen," he complains delicately, because it's that or scream.

\--

Out of his own body, Bull's sense of smell has gone to shit, but he still has his finely-honed observational skills to fall back on. The urgency Cullen had been putting into his sloppy blowjob, his rough focus on what's normally his body, and is now Dorian's—the Commander doesn't seem to have realised that his own advice to them applies to himself as well. He's not exactly the soul of slow, lingering love-making, no matter what he technically knows about his own body's needs.

"Let's change focus, big guy," Bull suggests before Cullen can reply to Dorian's needling. "C'mere." He gives Dorian's hand a parting squeeze as he twists to sit on his heels, and beckons Cullen over with a leer. "I haven't had the chance to appreciate my assets up close and personal."

Judging by the way Cullen looks at Dorian's spit-slick cock as he gets to his knees and shuffles towards Bull, he's not entirely pleased with the delay in his agenda, but he does still go.

Dorian's not gonna be the first to spill tonight, no matter what, and despite his ample musculature, Cullen's not working from a position of strength in the bedroom. Lucky for all of them, the Bull doesn't mind being bossy.

He rises to his knees as well, and surveys Cullen from under Dorian's heavy eyelids. The Bull knows what his own body looks like, of course, but there's really something to be said for a new perspective. Cullen looms over him like this, just a huge slab of the Qun's finest, radiating heat and waiting implacably for a reaction.

Bull gives in to the temptation. He licks his hand wet enough, and reaches out to palm his balls, curl his fingers around his cock.

"Fuck," Bull says over Cullen's hiss. He feels _huge_. "Kadan, you really take that?"

"Happily," Dorian rasps. He's on his stomach now, head propped on his hands, feet twined around each other in the air, watching the two of them with a predatory look in his eye. Combined, the effect is the least Cullen-like Bull can imagine.

He's feeling better, then, which settles a small piece of this puzzle running in the Bull's head.

" _How_?" The word is barely voiced, just a rumble slipping out of Cullen's mouth as he stares down at Bull's hand on his cock, at the way even his long fingers don't-quite-touch around it. His hips punch forward in tiny pulses, and the play of muscle in his core silences the chuckle Bull had been about to release.

"Practice," Dorian answers smugly, as if he hadn't stared in shock when Bull had first dropped his trousers. "And oil, of course, and hours of devoted study."

"I'd like to see that." This is quiet too, Cullen's lust clearly doing the speaking for him.

The Bull can't do anything right now about the longing in his voice, not even examine it. He laughs instead, and lets go of Cullen's cock, sliding his hand around his thigh to grab at his ass. "Not tonight, though—the two of us had agreed on a couple ground rules, and we figured I shouldn't be in charge of this body for that operation."

"Not if I'm going to have to bear the consequences," Dorian says. "Touch him," he adds, almost off-hand.

"What?" Cullen asks.

"Get your hands on him, Commander."

Cullen glances at Dorian, but Bull doesn't. He knows Dorian's interests; this is barely scratching the surface.

"Oh, he wants to see us, believe me." Bull digs his fingers into Cullen's ass in encouragement, startling a low sound out of him. "And I know you're thinking about how to get us out of this pickle we're in, but right now I need you to trust us."

His grip, when it eventually encloses Bull's cock, isn't hesitant. Bull's been hard for a while, and the feeling of callused fingers dragging over and over his shaft is enough to startle a groan out of him, and he's leaning forward to bite at Cullen's shoulder now. "Good," he breathes up into his ear, and yeah, that raises the speed.

"You feel—" Cullen cuts himself off.

"What?" the Bull asks, but doesn't give time to answer. "Do I feel small against you, Curly? You must feel ten feet tall, huh, just so fucking strong and so fucking hot." Between the difference in body heat and the lack of lubricant, the feeling of his hand is just this side of too much. Bull wants to crawl out of his skin, but he just bites down on Cullen's shoulder again and flexes his toes against the sheets.

Dorian's suddenly there, drizzling oil over Cullen's steadily working hand, and the sudden slickness is a blessing that releases a sigh from Bull's chest. "Fuck, that's right."

"Didn't want this one to chafe the goods," Dorian says with a daring smack to Cullen's ass.

"Thank you, Dorian," Cullen says almost automatically, rhythm faltering momentarily.

The way he's _looking_ at Bull now has hairs raising all up and down Bull's arms. Something about the determined pumping of his hand sits oddly in a way it hadn't before.

The Bull puts his hand over Cullen's, laces his fingers between his, forcefully slows the pace, pulls their hands back. "Your knee's probably gonna complain soon," he says. It's not a lie. "Here," and he shoves a couple pillows to the side, making a hollow to lay back in and pats himself invitingly. "Climb on."

"I don't see how this is better on a knee," Cullen says, but he obeys, sprawling carefully over Bull like a crushing, sun-warmed wall, and he meets Bull's eyes for a searching moment.

The Bull ruts up against his cock, greasing the way with his own prick and his oil-slick hand. He can't help groaning happily at the smooth heat. "Good," he croons, and kisses his approval into Cullen's mouth.

At this angle, it's apparent how much bigger everything about the Bull's body is. He feels almost drowned here, with his head framed between massive forearms and his cock being dragged against by a relentless, heavy weight.

Shit, Dorian feels like this every time they fuck? "Good for us," Bull mutters.

"Nails, Bull," Dorian instructs into his ear, just a hot breath and a great idea.

Bull scrapes his fingernails down Cullen's back and arches up to get more friction on more of his body. Cullen's hips drive against his _hard_ , the impact bouncing him up the bed a handful of inches. The Bull can feel the tension in his gut ratcheting tighter, a surge of what must be mana sliding along his tendons all over.

"Maker's breath, Dor—" Cullen bites off, hastily correcting himself, "Bull, apologies, I can't _think_."

"You're not supposed to," Dorian says with a laugh, and there he is, insinuating himself on the edge of this pocket of space defined by Cullen's bulk, grabbing Cullen by the horns and pulling him to that demanding mouth.

Cullen goes, dumbly—only a fool would refuse Dorian, with that wicked and shameless tongue. Just the sounds of them kissing is enough to feed the sparks splashing through the Bull's veins.

"There you go," Dorian's saying, and there's a little, broken sound from Cullen in response.

He lowers his head back down, breathing humid in Bull's space. "It's so easy," he says, almost despairingly. His eye is trained down, in the space between their bodies where his cock is fucking oil and copious amounts of precome all over Bull's—he doesn't particularly look like he's conscious of what he'd said.

"You got that right," Bull says, encouraging. He traces his nails back up through the sweat on Cullen's back, over bunching muscles. "Especially with a sweet thing like this pressed up against you. And Dorian's body is so easy for it, too—look at how fucking—how fucking messy it's getting," Bull says, and maybe he's not totally in control of his own mouth either. "You like that?"

"Fuck," Cullen breathes, and seizes his mouth in an overpowering, claiming kiss; he tastes like metal and skin, and he _bites_.

Bull bites back, and Cullen's gasping and coming, hips not slowing as he spreads the mess around, spilling his load in feverish spurts.

Cullen's muttering praises and obscenities too low to hear, and heat races through Bull's bones as his cock twitches in the mess on Bull's stomach.

"There you go, filthy," Bull murmurs, and smears a kiss against Cullen's panting mouth. "Perfect."

Cullen collapses against and around him.

\-- 

_Maker, let me stay here. Don't make me go back._

The thought is sudden and fearful. Cullen regrets it, but the kick of orgasm has left him too drained to stew in remorse. His breath is still coming in heavy stutters, and his muscles are singing joyfully, and what's a moment of sourness against all that? Against the feeling of being called _perfect_?

He doesn't look around at all, stays in the darkness of the cave made by the pillows and Bull's shoulder and his body. The sheets smell like oranges, under the fresh tang of sex. Oranges and something floral.

Someone is tracing their fingers around the point of his elbow, up his arm to the bulge of his shoulder—probably Dorian.

"You'll have to let him up at some point," Dorian says. There's a smile audible in the words.

"I have enough air for a few minutes yet," Bull volunteers, but his voice is muffled.

With a grunt, Cullen rolls off of him to the opposite side from where Dorian is. "That was _good_ ," he says, and tries to put the force of his heart in the words.

His bed-partners for the night laugh, but he doesn't feel defensive. Partly because he'd said what he meant, and there is no shame in that. Partly because for the first time in quite a while, he doesn't feel like he needs defenses.

Maybe he should try to find release more often.

It takes time for his mind to start plodding forward again, for the fuzzy comfort to begin to flatten and solidify. There's rustling of sheets beside him, and growled laughter, and the sounds of kissing.

The times he doesn't feel like he needs defenses, aren't those the times when he needs them the most?

He opens his eye.

For a pulled-sugar moment, the two men beside him may as well be strangers. They're perfectly matched, straining muscle and open mouths and hunger, even the lighter one. To see that body smiling and writhing on a dripping leg, naked—

"What do you want, kadan?" the darker one is asking, and the words rouse Cullen from his trance. That's the Iron Bull in Dorian's skin; his lover who he addresses as _kadan_ is Dorian, in the other body right there.

"Well, I've had some time to come up with a plan," Dorian says. He sneaks a burning glance over to Cullen as the Bull plants a kiss on his—on _the_ clavicle. "I'm rather fond of it, I find its simplicity to be elegant."

"And?" the Bull asks, indulgent.

Dorian executes a tidy, competent twist to end up straddling Bull's chest. He threads fingers through Bull's hair and curls down over his head to demand in a throaty whisper, "I'm going to fuck your face, dearest."

"Oho, now there's an idea," Bull says, bringing his arms up to steady Dorian. He tilts his head back to drink in a burning kiss from Dorian, who has to bend double to deliver it.

The light in the room notches down as a candle on the desk abruptly runs out of wick. Cullen is having trouble looking away (was this what _they'd_ looked like, when—); Dorian knows every little thing to do to make the Bull restive in his embrace.

The intimacy between the two men smothers Cullen's senses, but it's not entirely pleasant. The air of Dorian's chambers feels cloying and cooling at once.

Bull draws back slightly, pushing his head deeper into a pillow. "One question, first," he says, and the scratchiness of his voice sends a tingle through Cullen's stomach. For all that he looks like he has eyes only for Dorian, some sense at the base of Cullen's skull tells him he's being observed, too. "If I'm occupied with your cock, who'll be occupied with mine?"

Ah, so that's the game. "Subtle," Cullen says. Something loosens in his heart, and he pushes himself upright with a grin.

"Well, someone told me we weren't being crass," Bull says. He spreads his legs, one knee bent, the other leg stretched out, long and inviting.

"Shush," Dorian says. "And open up."

Cullen looks away from the scene at the head of the bed, from the flushed cock rubbing against lips, from the look of concentration as Bull's lips part to accept it. (There's a shadow from that first week in Skyhold, that same prick pushing past those same lips, but with none of the surety, none of the—)

He's got a task to do, and he sets to it with some gratitude, crawling over one leg and letting the other bracket his shoulder, bending his head so all he can see, smell, think about is this.

It was obvious earlier that Dorian's as aesthetically-minded here as elsewhere, all hair kept cropped and corralled far more neatly than Cullen can bring himself to bother with. The effect has been somewhat spoiled by the remains of Cullen's earlier exertions, however; no matter how cleanly-kept Dorian prefers to be, there's only so much it can do against the mess of oil and come Cullen had rutted against him.

Cullen slides one hand firmly up the outstretched thigh, presses down through the slipperiness at the base of Bull's stomach, and takes his cock into his mouth. Just the head at first, then as he remembers again how much bigger he is, he gets bolder about dipping his head down, and down.

With his sharpened senses, the taste and smell saturate his mind; he almost can't hear the soft grunts and murmured curses from the man fucking Bull's mouth.

The angle's not perfect for Cullen to take the cock all the way to the root, so he moves without thinking, passing his forearm crossways under Bull's ass to hitch him up effortlessly. Cullen's spine would hurt if it were curved to raise his hips like that, no other support aside from his own shoulders and the arm underneath him, but the Bull gives no sign of discomfort.

His cock twitches against Cullen's soft palate, and deeper, when Cullen's nose presses against where his hand rests. Salty precome floods his mouth, and there's a soft tapping slap further up the bed.

"Fuck, Cullen," the Bull pants, his voice absolutely dragged to the Void and back. The sounds of Dorian thrusting into his mouth have ceased, and Cullen can hear Bull gasping for breath. 

It's encouraging, and then when someone gets a hand on Cullen's horns and holds him in place, it's irresistible.

He gulps around Bull's cock, tongue squeezing in a rhythmic pulse, hand moving to cup his heavy balls, and then he can _feel_ it, heat pouring down his throat as the body in his arms goes taut. Bull moans low and long. 

Suddenly possessed by the urge to see, too, Cullen pulls off in time to see the last couple feeble twitches of release, and strips his hand up along Bull's cock until he's got nothing left to give. 

(He hadn't done this last time.)

Voice reverent, strange, Dorian says, "Lovely."

Cullen glances up and meets brown eyes blown dark by lust, pale cheeks slapped red by it, blonde hair gone feral with it, crooked grin sharpened keen with it.

He looks… 

Dorian wipes a thumb along Cullen's brow, gathering up a bead of sweat before it can drip into his eye. He studies Cullen's borrowed face as Cullen reclaims his arm from under Bull's going-lax weight.

"Well?" Cullen asks. If Dorian's going to stare, he wants him to reveal what he's finding.

He doesn't explain himself, but he does twist further and pull Cullen up into a brief, hard kiss.

It's done before Cullen has time to feel anything about that scarred lip against him.

"No afterglow yet, amatus," Dorian informs the Bull, and resumes his shallow thrusts as if he had never paused.

Cullen studies the muscles of the back in front of him, moving in concert, cording up through thick shoulders and down through a sturdy ass. There are extensive scars, which is normally what Cullen notices the rare moments when he sees this angle, but there's also something beautiful in the strength of its build.

"That's it, fuck, f—" It doesn't even sound like Cullen's voice, but he supposes it must be.

Cullen moves up and places his hands on his sides, thumbs digging in at his spine—just holding, not directing—and Dorian comes undone with a broken sound, gritted out between clenched teeth.

\--

Dorian doesn't immediately return to his own body, which is probably for the best; he's clenching his teeth tight in Cullen's body, and wouldn't want to be doing the same in his own body, not considering the blowjob Bull had just finished giving.

The switch comes soon after, when he's collapsed in an aching heap to one side, Bull petting his hair and Cullen propping himself up on the headboard and staring into the middle distance, seemingly uncaring of his complete nudity. Dorian closes his eyes and enjoys the feeling of fingers playing through his hair, and after a hazy moment of quiet, he's displaced, sitting up and running his fingers through Cullen's sweat-curled mop.

He can feel his mana pacing calmly along inside of him. The incessant song is gone, as are the itch of anxiety and the majority of the aches (though his jaw and throat are certainly feeling used). He remembers where the pain had been, though, and moves his hand to the base of Cullen's head, to the tight, sore muscles that hadn't been touched by the snap of relief when he'd come.

Dorian gentles his thumb up a tense ridge, and Cullen lowers his head responsively, unconsciously.

"There we go," Bull says. A lazy smile spreads his lips as he stretches and rotates his hands. "I'll get us a rag or something."

"A," Dorian starts, then has to clear his throat. Maker, but he hadn't gone easy on his throat just now, had he? "A handkerchief, please, I'm not a brute," Dorian finishes in a rasp.

As Bull is suiting deed to word, Dorian makes another pass at the same knot in Cullen's neck, more firmly this time. "Are you feeling entirely yourself again?" he asks, voice quiet under the small sounds of the Iron Bull wetting cloths at Dorian's washbasin.

There's a long pause before Cullen answers. Dorian doesn't have a great angle on his face from where he's sitting, has to rely on cues of a furrowed brow and a heavy breath. "I am," is the eventual answer.

"I apologise for my part in drawing you into all this tonight," Dorian says. He works his thumb in small circles until Cullen's jaw clicks open, then soothes the muscle in a long stroke that ends past Cullen's hairline.

A short, noncommittal hum from the man.

"Here."

The damp cloths that Bull tosses to Dorian are chilled, so he spends a fragment of a spark in warming them up before he offers one to Cullen.

There's another delay before Cullen reaches out to take it. He cleans himself perfunctorily, still curled on his side, while Dorian struggles to trap the thoughts slipping away from him in the warm, post-coital tides.

He wants to know if he'd wronged Cullen when they'd first spent the night together; he'd promised himself he'd do something about the lyrium in the room; he's going to have to talk with Bull about tonight's events; he wants… Does he want this to happen again? Or is it just respect for Cullen, mingled with simple lust and less simple sadness at the suffering that seems to dog the man's footsteps?

Cullen's pushing himself to a seated position. "I should return to my room before I fall asleep here." He folds the now-soiled cloth in slow movements, eyes running over the creases methodically. "Unless there's anything you need to do to verify our wellbeing?"

A shared glance between Dorian and Bull. "Nothing magical," Dorian answers. "The ritual has culminated as written, so I don't have anything to check on that front."

"Good." He drops the cloth on the bed decisively. "I'll be going." He collects his clothes from where Dorian had discarded them (shirt off the side of the bed, trousers tangled in the blanket, one sock underneath him) and begins to put them on. "It's been interesting, that's for certain."

"Cullen," Dorian starts, but he's not positive how to go on.

The man barely looks up from where he's pulling on his socks. "Dorian," he says.

Dorian casts a pleading look at Bull.

"No further than this room," the Bull says slowly. "We agreed to that, that we don't discuss this elsewhere."

"Bull, if you're threatening to tell anyone of what you learned," Cullen starts, expression gathering thunderclouds. At least he's looking at them now.

"That's not what I'm saying," the Bull says, then, "I won't," when Dorian frowns meaningfully. It pays to speak clear with the Commander, he's learned. "But I'd like to talk with you a bit about what happened tonight, at some point."

"Whatever for?" The thunderclouds aren't clearing, but they're not worsening. "It's over, and I can't imagine you'll be asking for a repeat at any point."

"Maybe I just like to talk."

Dorian snorts. "Don't sell yourself short, Bull, you _love_ to talk."

This penchant is something that Dorian had once considered the absolute death knell of romance, but enough conversations with Bull have allowed Dorian to develop an appreciation the value of discussion. Talking about attraction can heighten it rather than puncturing it; discussing an encounter after the fact is one of the best ways to ensure that the next goes even better than than the prior.

And when you discover that your friend—and they _are_ friends, for all their occasional sniping—is carrying deep, hidden limits that have kept him from one of the strongest joys in your own life... Dorian doesn't know if talking will fix anything, but he doubts Cullen would be inclined to make changes on his own.

Cullen's face is not so blank as he probably wishes it to be. "What were you thinking of discussing, exactly?"

"I don't want to rehash your past—some things need to stay buried," Bull says; he's pulling on his loose nightshirt even as he smiles at Cullen. "Just wanted to check in about some stuff for future reference."

"He really does insist on this kind of thing after encounters," Dorian adds. "It's easiest just to humour him."

Cullen's boots take some force to pull on; his balance wavers slightly as he focuses on the one, and he steadies himself with a hand on the wall as he pulls on the other.

In the silence, the lassitude that had been tugging at Dorian's limbs before solidifies, lining his skin with a leaden weight. He's more worn out than he'd originally thought.

"Fine," Cullen ultimately concedes. "I assume you had a time you were thinking of?"

"How'd you feel about sharing some bread in the morning? Dorian keeps a jar of crabapple jelly squirrelled away in that desk," Bull discloses without so much as a 'by your leave.'

The look Cullen gives Dorian at that point—very nearly wanting—silences his griping about Bull's generosity. "I don't rise early," Dorian says instead.

They hadn't talked about their first time together. The next time they'd crossed paths, Cullen had flushed faintly and adhered strictly to topics pertaining to the Inquisition and setting up Skyhold as a stronghold. It had been similar enough to the protocols Dorian had learned in Tevinter, of ill-advised trysts mutually forgotten, that he'd been nearly relieved to leave it in the past.

"Until tomorrow, then," Cullen says, and he's out of Dorian's chambers before he can muster any response.

"Well," Bull says, and nigh well collapses onto the bed, stretching his arms out to take up as much space as possible. "That was a hell of a night."

"It certainly was."

The glance Bull shoots him out of the corner of his eye is surprisingly serious. "You good?"

Dorian nods in affirmation. "Mixed, I suppose," he corrects himself. "Embarrassed about being caught in such an indulgent use of magic by Ser Templar, there, and then to have had to get him involved… Maker."

Bull chuckles, but doesn't take over from there. Irritating, how he always seems to know when Dorian has more to figure out or say.

"Also, I don't know how he survives in that body, I really don't. I'm in no hurry to repeat that." The pull from the lyrium and his various aches and pains had been practically relaxing, compared to the feeling of being _unsafe_ that had clawed at him off and on throughout the night. Dorian hadn't realised how comfortable he's become in Skyhold, with Bull, until it'd been thrown into such stark relief. "An orgasm shouldn't have to be such a grand struggle."

Bull gathers him close under a hot arm and hums in sympathy. Trained interrogative techniques bedamned, Dorian allows himself to be cuddled.

"And—" Dorian plucks at the sheet over his lap. "I suppose I'm sad. But that's to be expected."

"Because he's suffered?"

"More because he doesn't seem terribly inclined to _stop_ suffering."

"Understandable," Bull sighs.

They sit for a long moment. After their hearts have aligned in beats, Dorian peels himself out of bed ruffling Bull's bristly chin as he passes by. "And you?"

"Oh, you know me—I'd never complain about a night spent with a couple pretty men like yourselves."

"Would you complain about your lover accidentally inviting a past conquest to your bed?" It's hard to get just the right inflection; comfortable but not breezy, probing but not guilty.

"I wouldn't, and I won't," Bull promises. 

They don't talk much more that night—Dorian's desperately in need of a proper bath, but also reluctant to procure one for himself, and making do with the pitcher and basin he has to hand takes some careful strategising—but it's comforting just to have someone beloved near, and constant.

* 

Then morning arrives, Cullen soon on its heels. Bull had gotten up early to pilfer a few rolls and fresh butter from the kitchen, and the jelly proves to be temptation enough to get Cullen to accept one. They settle in, Dorian leaning against the headboard, Cullen conspicuously spurning chairs to lean against the wall nearest the door, and Bull on the sturdy stool he'd brought in months ago.

"Can I ask what was so urgent, now that we're rested and fed?" Cullen raises his eyebrows, charmingly unaware of a crumb clinging to his chin. 

"Health," the Iron Bull says bluntly, taking the weight for Dorian for now. "You're not well, are you? And before you answer, remember that I can read Dorian a sight better than I can read you, and he wasn't trying to hide how rough your body is feeling."

This isn't what Dorian had been expecting Bull to bring up first, but he can't deny it's worth a mention. There's no fathomable reason for the Commander of the Inquisition to be hobbling through the hallways because of treatable joint and muscle pain.

"You'll have to narrow down your criteria for me, Bull." In the morning light, Cullen looks as Dorian is used to seeing him: tired, attractive, ever-so-slightly impatient. "None of us are well. There's a war on."

That singing had been so terribly pervasive.

Dorian bites back a self-recriminating curse, pushes himself closer to his writing desk, where his belt pouch is draped over the back of a chair, and tugs the chair close to the edge of the bed. It's been a while since he's done a spell of this nature, so it takes a moment to get the glyphs right, first in his mind and then on the seat of the chair: something like warding, something of repulsion, a memory of being a miscreant teen and using this to hide poppy from one of the Junior Enchanters… And he tugs the belt pouch down onto the glyph, and banishes it to another dimension for the time being.

Cullen's shoulders drop infinitesimally.

Bull asks, "What did you just do?" It's curious rather than accusatory.

"Simplified our conversation, for one thing," Dorian says. "You're welcome."

"You didn't need to do that," says Cullen.

"Perhaps not, but I wanted to," Dorian says, and settles back on the bed. He smoothes the cuffs of his housecoat—Bull can tempt him into entertaining company at this slightly-too-early hour, but he cannot tempt him into anything that requires buckles to fasten. "And I think this is roughly what Bull is talking about—you can do things that you don't _need_ to do, if they improve your situation."

A breath, as if Cullen will argue, but it's let go in a gust. "I know," admits Cullen. He kicks his heels out to rest just under the frame of Dorian's bed, and leans in a subtle stretch. "I hadn't realised the extent of my accumulated pains until I was able to see the contrast last night."

"My body hasn't had it too easy, either," the Bull says, and the way he grins stretches the scars on his face. "But Stitches does great work, and since we joined up with you lot, some of your healers have also been a real help. You can't steal Stitches from us, mind, but that Dionesia's got a real gift for unknotting muscles."

"I'll look into it." Cullen's smile is tight, but present. "The prospect of returning to this body was less appealling than it ought to have been, for a moment there."

 _This_ body, not _my_. Dorian had half-wondered if he'd imagined that careful, constant distancing, but it's still here in the light of day. It's at risk of dripping a hole into Dorian's calm. As has become habit, he looks at Bull and tries to borrow some of his. 

Bull certainly hasn't missed Cullen's linguistic tic, but there's nothing in his face that gives it away. "I certainly can't blame you for wanting more of me," he says lightly, and poses. Cullen's smile loosens a little, and he goes on, "Next time I see Dionesia, I'll tell her to expect you sometime soon."

"Thank you." He doesn't look totally sure of his gratitude, but he does seem willing, which Dorian figures is good enough. "If that's all…"

"It's not," Dorian finds himself saying; he gets his words out before Bull, though he'd guess that Bull also had more to add. "Though if you truly don't want to discuss what I'm about to ask, please tell me."

Cullen nods warily. 

Dorian wishes that he'd made some sort of actual plan beyond the rough, sleepy outlines he'd constructed before passing out last night. Bull's looking at him like he's trying to speak mind to mind with him, but Dorian can sift no meaning from him aside from _tread lightly_.

"I couldn't help drawing some parallels between events of the other evening we spent together, and the events of last night." _I wouldn't want anyone saying I'm a selfish lover,_ and he'd thought he'd been being well-mannered when really he may have been just extending some torment.

"Well, I'd have remembered the Iron Bull being there," says Cullen dryly. He doesn't look like he's going to encourage the line of discussion, but he's also not forbidding it yet, so Dorian charges on.

"Loose parallels. Certain acts." The taste of Cullen's cock had lingered in his mouth until he'd cleaned his teeth. "I want to know if I hurt you then."

"You want to know if I hold a grudge?"

"Can you hear me?" Dorian asks, nettled despite himself. He smooths his metaphorical feathers when Bull raises an eyebrow at him, and rephrases, "Regardless of what you want to call it, and regardless that I wasn't the one to put it there in the first place, I suspect I hit a significant injury of yours that night. It hadn't been my intention."

"I know that, Dorian. I meant it when I said I enjoyed the night," Cullen says, and the man looks weary beyond words. He rubs fingers to his temples briefly. "You're treating me as though I'm weak enough to be broken by something as simple as a frigging."

"Don't misrepresent the situation," Dorian says, uncomfortable and resenting himself for his lack of ease. "I wouldn't claim that it was our 'frigging,' as you say, that hurt you."

"What do you want me to say?" Cullen asks, and when Dorian doesn't have an answer, he sighs. "That night, what we did… It helped me, do you understand? It showed me that even in an otherwise ideal situation, this body's capacity for, for closeness, or sex, is limited. To the point where it isn't strictly worth pursuing."

The words ring in the room, even as they sink in Dorian's heart.

"It's better to know that kind of thing," Cullen says with the kind of calm that belies strong, leashed emotions. "You did me a favour, Dorian, and I'll thank you to do another and let this topic die."

\--

The Bull gives Dorian space to respond to that. He doesn't know a word in Common for the units of time in a conversation, but the Qun had taught him how to measure out those allotments as needed for extracting information. And while he's turned to a new path now, while the men in this room are no longer his marks, but his kith, there's still utility in knowing steps of that dance.

Three, four. Dorian's lips are pressed together, brow furrowed, but Cullen has him in something of a checkmate: ignore Cullen's wishes to address his pain, or ignore his pain to cater to his wishes.

The silence seeps through the room. It doesn't leave space for Dorian to respond.

"Cullen," Bull says. "You have the capacity."

"I beg your pardon," Cullen says, plainly begging for nothing.

"You can fuck, is all I'm saying." It's hard to control his tone as precisely as he needs to, but Bull was a professional once, and this is important. "It's in your capacity if you want it."

That surprises a humourless laugh from Cullen. "All that based on last night? What a surprise to think that was indicative of anything."

"Sure," says Bull. "We don't need to talk about that right this second." The intensity needs to be smoothed out, so Bull lets Cullen escape his gaze as he turns his attention to picking up odds and ends around the room. The candles from last night ought to be put away, so he takes care of that while Dorian and Cullen both watch.

"It was hard to stay in the room for some time last night," Dorian offers quietly. "It was like my whole self telling me to leave, or fight back, or anything."

That doesn't get a verbal response, either, but Cullen's studying Dorian, his placid expression belied by the intensity of his attention.

"It changed by the end. It was good," Dorian goes on, matter-of-fact. "I don't know if it carried over to when you were back, but at the end it was _shockingly_ good."

Bull snags the stool and sits back down, shooting an approving look at Dorian. The words were as well-chosen as they could be.

"I… see," Cullen says. "Well, I suppose I'm glad." And he might be; it's hard to tell.

Judging that that's as far as Dorian's likely to get with that line this morning, Bull says, "There was one last thing I wanted to bring up, and then I'll be all out of questions, promise."

"Thank the Maker." The words are only partly in jest; Cullen isn't quite braced for an attack anymore, but he's not far off.

"It could be this is nothing, but I wanted to mention that there'd been a couple moments in there," and he tilts his head toward the bed, controlled. "When Dorian had been asking for a pause."

That doesn't elicit a verbal response, but Cullen nods slowly. Dorian's watching him from the bed, and the trust in his eyes would've thrilled Bull a year ago or scared him six months ago, but now it pools in his reserves of strength.

"I don't have a particular question here, but it seemed as though you were slow to stop, each of those times." The Bull doesn't blink. "It's almost like you were thinking you had a better judgment than him."

Closing off behind the eyes, now, and yeah, Bull had read that right.

"Was that something that had happened the first time, kadan?" Bull asks. He already suspects it wouldn't've been, but he needs Cullen to know that _he_ knows the precise shape of the rock under their hull.

Dorian's hands still from where they'd been fussing with the crust of the roll he'd picked apart. "No, not then," he says, slowly, searchingly. "You have to remember, though, Bull, he doesn't know our cues—he couldn't've known what I meant last night. He wouldn't've wanted to..."

"I should've been able to guess," Cullen says. "The first time."

"And the second?" Bull keeps his voice quiet, even.

Hand scrubbing at his cheek, Cullen answers, "I do feel ashamed for forgetting myself, I was caught up and—it seemed the most efficient thing to do." His knuckle is digging into the stone wall, but his words are steady. "I somewhat lost sight of you for a moment, Dorian."

The surprise on Dorian's face tells Bull that he hadn't marked it, himself; or that if he had, he'd also dismissed it at the time.

"I hope I regained my senses soon enough to prevent any harm," Cullen says. "It was simply… The thought was simply that I know the body well, and we needed to get it to come."

"Cullen," Bull says over the stump of Cullen's next attempted sentence.

" _Listen to yourself_ ," Dorian says, and he's leaning toward Cullen now, hands in tight fists to keep himself from reaching out where he may not be wanted. " _It_ doesn't do anything on its own, Cullen, a body takes a soul to act."

"I apologise again, then," Cullen says, and Bull ought to have expected him to latch onto that particular aspect.

Dorian waves a dismissive hand, his focus undisrupted. "I scarcely noticed it at the time; you were willing to go along with us pulling you into our bed unawares, I can certainly forgive you for a moment's hesitation in the heat of the moment. That's not what upset me."

In the breath Dorian takes to collect himself, Cullen pushes. "So? What upset you?"

"The way you speak of it."

"The way I speak of what?"

If sheer force of will could get someone to understand, Dorian's stare would be doing the trick right now, but Cullen doesn't show signs of comprehension. Dorian changes tack, asking, "What relationship do you have to your body?" 

Dorian's restraint impresses Bull: he doesn't raise the question of how Cullen had spoken of his release, the chilling echo of what Bull bets is the Circle Tower revealed by _get it to come_.

Cullen looks almost relieved to have a clear question to respond to, beneath the annoyance that he's not free of this discussion. "What relationship do you have to your belt?" he responds.

A frustrated huff from Dorian.

"It's a tool. It serves me," Cullen explains. A ghost of his wry humour passes across his face, and he adds, "Albeit poorly at times."

Dorian, shaking his head, replies insistently, "It's _half of you_. It has your memories, your experiences." He raises his chin. "Your body is your self—just as it takes a soul to be truly alive, your soul needs a body or it's… it's nothing."

"I can't see that it matters," Cullen says.

Dorian and Bull have had a few conversations about bodies, and the relationship between the soul and its vessel. While Dorian's beliefs had seemed bizarre through the lens of the Qun, they've come more into focus as Bull's peered around the sides of that lens. Those conversations spool out in front of Bull now, and he can guess that Cullen's not exactly in a space to entertain new ideas, but he hadn't diverted the flow of speech in time.

They're here now; Cullen isn't going to hold still for this chat any other time soon.

"It matters what you call a thing," the Iron Bull says with a shrug. "Names give things and thoughts purpose; wrong names, wrong words, can lead to wrong conclusions."

"And Dorian just happens to know the right words," Cullen says flatly. "While I know the wrong ones."

"I wouldn't say that," says Bull. Cullen's words have served him somehow, even as they've betrayed him.

"I've had people treat me as an object, too, Cullen. I'm not saying it was the same, obviously, but—we're not _things_." The words trip over themselves more than Dorian's speech usually does, but he presses on. "You think of your body as a, a rebellious object that barely serves you. And you didn't think you could be intimate ever again."

Though he generally keeps up a good shell of 'aloof, unbothered Tevinter magister,' he's obviously upset. He's clearly drawing some similar lines to what Bull is sketching: a dark stroke through blood mages stealing Cullen's control away from himself; a curve through lyrium, manipulation, and bad actions in Kirkwall; recently, a sharp angle away from everything except duty and intent.

Cullen and his body, and his control of his body, is a difficult history; Bull and Dorian both know what it is to have a difficult history with what you want.

"And?" Cullen asks, mustering up an arch tone despite the pallor in his cheeks. "What, do you want me to thank you for proving me wrong?"

He isn't looking at either of them particularly, gaze returning to the door beside him as it had been drawn to the lyrium before.

"It bothers him," Bull explains.

Cullen's eyes fix on Bull now, sharp and inquisitive. He looks for the lie, and plainly can't find it. 

Might as well press his luck. "For that matter, it bothers me, too, Chief." 

Realization. "You needn't trouble yourselves." Cullen's voice has a softness in it now which somehow passes on to slacken the tension in Bull's spine. "I've kept well enough thus far."

"Of course," Dorian says. "But will you continue to be well?" Cullen's mouth opens on a reassurance, but Dorian presses further, "For the rest of your life, Cullen, whether it's short or long—will you truly be well alone?"

Cullen's expression dulls as he turns his sharp evaluation inwards. Had Dorian been in Cullen's boots, he absolutely wouldn't've been fine; Bull's less sure about himself than he is about Dorian, and he has only a guess at what conclusion Cullen's coming to.

Three, four. More time, in larger slices. Bull takes a steadying breath and waits for Cullen's answer.

"I can't say." Cullen shrugs. "But I've been surviving, and I imagine that'll continue."

In the cool light of morning, there are odd similarities between Dorian and Cullen's faces: resignation sits heavily on both their brows, fatigue in the corners of their mouths. Bull's only allowed to touch one of them, right now, so he reaches out to palm over Dorian's shoulder. The touch is familiar to both of them, and grounds him as it always does.

"Well I'm certainly not going to dismiss the value of that," Dorian says, and leans back into Bull's hand.

"It's good," Bull adds. "We need you to survive."

Cullen yanks his eyeline up from Bull's hand to his face. "I know," he says.

At least Dorian's feeling level enough to smile. "Stirring speech," he says, 

"All part of the responsibilities of the Inquisition's Commander," Cullen responds in weak good humour. He tilts his neck side-to-side, cracking vertebrae loudly. "Speaking of which…"

"Yeah, I should get going, too," Bull says. "If I'm not around to shout at them in training, the boys get lonesome, you know."

"Can't have that," Dorian says, and knocks his hands together to shake off the crumbs. "Cullen, thank you for stopping by this morning."

"And for last night," Bull adds.

There's no time-wasting shit about how it had been easy, or simple. Cullen just nods. "I trust you'll remember my condition."

While Bull is still wrapping his head around those first two words, Dorian promises, "Not a peep from either of us, Commander, you have my word."

"Mine too."

"Right." With a hand on the door, Cullen stops and says, "Before I go, I—. Despite the complications of the evening, I will say I'm grateful that I got to experience that kind of closeness once again. I wish to thank you for that." The man can make _searing_ eye contact when he wants to. "You've given me... much to consider."

"Keep us posted about your... considerations," Dorian says with a grin, the kind to set a man at ease.

The click of the latch is loud, and then the sound of Cullen's footsteps receding down the hall is quiet, just above the threshold of Bull's hearing. It's blotted out by a sigh from Dorian as he stretches his arms out.

"Everything good, kadan?" he asks.

Dorian targets him with a slantways glance. "You already know the answer to that."

"Maybe I just want to hear it from you."

The fabric of Dorian's robe is cool when he presses himself up against Bull's chest, and his hands are warm where he threads them together behind Bull's neck. He hums contemplatively as Bull's hands find his hips, and he rises onto the balls of his feet to get closer. "Not yet," and his eyes are clear and calculating. "But we'll work on it."


End file.
